A Death In South Carolina: No Video, No Crime

In which we learn that killing someone on camera is still wrong.

That's the simple truth of it. That's all you know and all ye needs to know about the cold-blooded slaying of Walter Scott by Officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina. No video, and Slager drops his Taser by Scott's body and probably gets away with what he did. No video, and Scott goes down as just another of the many semi-hoodlums that are occupational hazards to our brave men in blue. No video, and Slager's doing three nights a week on Hannity's show by next Monday. No video, and Slager's half-a-hero, while Scott remains dead.

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But there is a video and Slager is shown both killing Scott, and appearing to try to cover it up in that most ancient of cop ways -- with a drop piece. He is seen handcuffing a dying man. So let us not have any explanation containing the phrase "isolated incident." Let us have no talk of "split-second decisions" or the "heat of the moment." What we see in the video is Slager's almost instantaneous response to what he's done. Drop a weapon. Concoct a story. Rely on your brother officers and ginned-up public opinion to mount your defense. Rely on the fact that you're a white man with a badge and the person you killed was clearly neither one. In everything we see on the video, Michael Slager was following...procedure.

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There is a video, so Michael Slager will face murder charges in this case, and that is as it should be, but the systemic problem goes merrily on.

North Charleston is South Carolina's third-largest city, with a population of about 100,000. African-Americans make up about 47 percent of residents, and whites account for about 37 percent. The Police Department is about 80 percent white, according to data collected by the Justice Department in 2007, the most recent period available.

The country has to decide what the function of its police forces actually is. Is it their function to protect and to serve all citizens, or is it to respond with overwhelming deadly force to placate the fears that one sector of the population nurses toward The Other? Are our police custodians of ordered liberty or some sort of Praetorian Guard of established privilege? I'm sympathetic enough to the average officer to believe that many of them want to be the former, but are trained too thoroughly in the techniques of the latter. I hope the villain of this piece doesn't turn out to be the guy who took the video, but I'm not sure that won't be the case. There shouldn't have to be video, is what I'm saying.

In extremely related news, the citizens of Ferguson, Missouri turned out in admirable numbers to begin to change the essential nature of their city government yesterday. For all the noise and bother, this is how you do it, one phone call at a time, one more door on which to knock. This is how the culture changes. This is how we get our police back.